Hopes for holiday after Shropshire mum's 115-mile passport dash
A mother-of-two from Shropshire should be able to go on holiday after making a desperate 115-mile dash to secure passports for her children.
Nicola Brockley, from Whitchurch, is planning to fly to Ibiza with her eight-year-old son, Thomas, and 11-year-old daughter, Molly, to join her entire family for her parents' 60th birthdays.
But after five weeks of passport delays, she thought the holiday was over before it had even started, as her children still hadn't received their passports.
Yesterday, in a last ditch bid to get the passports before the holiday was due to start, Mrs Brockley travelled 115 miles cross-country to the passport office in Peterborough.
She was able to pick up Molly's passport and is expecting Thomas's to arrive by 9am tomorrow.
The family have planned to do "60 things in 60 days" and the holiday was one of the key events.
Her children have also been granted special dispensation to take time off from school.
But when the passports still hadn't arrived, she launched an appeal for help on Twitter.
Mrs Brockley said: "I travelled down to Peterborough more out of hope that anything else. Even if I had been told the passports would not come it would have been better than this.
"I've had sleepless nights and I haven't been able to plan anything because everything's been in limbo.
"Now I've got Molly's but not Thomas's. I've paid for an upgrade and hopefully I should have his by 9am on Friday. It is brilliant news."
Prime Minster David Cameron said nationally up to 30,000 passport applications have been hit by delays.
He insisted yesterday that hundreds of extra staff have been drafted in and new offices are being opened in Liverpool next week to help tackle the backlog.
Labour leader Ed Miliband called on the premier to 'get a grip' as he warned that thousands of people face cancelled holidays as a result of the problems.
